Zardon

Rate the newest release of the CATALYST drivers on a scale from 1 through 10.

10 being a PERFECT figure and 1 being terrible, please vote and detail your opinions.

mike2h

i think zardon wants REAL, INFORMED, ratings. not a 10 just because they have been released.

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WildChild

For what I use em for they are a TENNNNNNNNNN

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Knowledge is SCARY,Stupidity is REALLY frightening

MIG-31

for me i vote ten for the time being.instantly noticed a increase in quake 3 and nolf 2.still to try my other favs yet.

nolf 2 looked odd when tried rgb cycle in smartshader options thought i were spicked & high.

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projectHUMAN

There are two 2's. :P Which "2" should I click!?

Zardon

well I had a wonderfully witty answer ready to say "well these drivers are so good they dont deserve a 1 !!", but thats lame, I cocked up...... fixed

Vengeance

I will rate later tonight, After I get home from work and play a game or two. But right now they are looking real good

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[color=red]Rage3D Super Moderator[/color]
[color=red]BFG 6800 GT [/color]

Raider1

Yeah it sucks being here at work with these cat 3.8 drivers buring a hole in my pocket. Only 2 1/2 hours till i can try them out

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The Autumn Wind is a pirate. Blustering in from sea With a rollicking song he sweeps along swaggering boisterously. His face is weather beaten. He wears a hooded sash. With his silver hat about his head And a bristly black moustache. He growls as he storms the country. A villain big and bold. And the trees all shake and quiver and quake. As he robs them of their gold. The Autumn wind is a Raider. Pillaging just for fun. He'll knock you 'round and upside down. And laugh when he's conquered and won.

My Rig

Roadee

I gave them an 8....because nothing it perfect. The only way I would of given them a 9 is if the over drive function was available for my 9800 Pro......I was hoping for something better then R3DTweak......but oh well. I am sure someone will hack the drivers and figure out a way for the rest of us to use it....where there is a will......there is a way

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We are born naked, wet, and hungry. Then things get worse.

Warpy

Increased framerate in Ravenshield
Better pixel shading performance in 3dmark03 and Aquamark3
Fixed my American Army Op "Shadow Issue".

[SIZE=xx-large]It's an 8![/SIZE]

I see ATI really working with the community to squeeze that extra inch to performance and public satisfaction
A excellent release, which is why my NVIDIA FX5900 is sitting on my bed in a box!

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Dyre Straits

I am giving these a [SIZE=xx-large]BIG 9[/SIZE] for the following reasons:

1. There's no such thing as PERFECT.

2. These have fixed my most annoying problem with the CAT 3.5-3.7s. Namely, I can now reboot my system without having to unplug my Video Out connection! YAY!!! YAY!!! YAY!!!

3. Not only #2, but they also remember my display settings so that I don't have to go back into the Control Panel and reconfigure the monitor and video out resolutions. WONDERFUL!!

4. So far, the only negative I've seen is this: In 3DMark2K1SE the High Poly Test (without the lights) is giving me texture flickering on the shadow/reflections of the tent pavilions in the background. (This is the test with the carousel gargoyles -- or whatever they're called.)

I do still have more testing to do, but, I've put these on both of my RADEONS (8500/128 MB & 64 DDR VIVO) and am tickled pink with them so far.

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Rayder

I gave them a 5.

ALL the same problems as the 3.6 and 3.7's, plus a few new ones. The new features are very nice, but if my games don't work correctly, they do me no good.

8500's need to be looked into more closely during driver development, the flickering texture issues got even worse. No amount of options changing made any difference to the games that exibit flickering/missing textures. Back to the 3.5 'hotfix' drivers for me, those are the last set of drivers that have consistenly worked well for me. And YES, as soon as I put the 3.5's back in, all the problems disappeared.

3 PC's, 3 - 8500 variations, 2 different motherboard chipsets, all the same exact problems. DriverCleaner 2.0 made no difference to the results. 8500's must be mongrel cards or something......

I'm pretty bummed-out about it.......I had really high hopes for the 3.8's........

Oh well.....at least they didn't crash, hard-lock or format my systems or anything like that.

sigh....maybe the [SIZE=xx-large]next release[/SIZE] .... [SIZE=x-large]next release[/SIZE] .... [SIZE=x-small]next release[/SIZE] .... (the neverending echo)

qballshalls2002

I gave them a 9.These drivers are the best Cats I ever used athough not perfect.My only complaints is that they should of implented the Uninstall Utility inside the display box when changing resolutions and such.My next complaint would be the new UI,is nice but it takes alittle while to set up the D3D/OGL properties.I also still get light studders/framerate lags with Vsync and AA enabled.I hope they will fix this.

I hope in the 3.9's they add crazy optimisations to there drivers to seriously boost performance big time!!!

FiatluX

Slowed my machine to near stop and hardlocked on me ! Its a 4 from me
Cleaned out and reinstalled 3.7´s ! Everything up and running perfectly again

Warpy

Perhaps its time to upgrade that video card son?

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ZzzombieBunny

Im getting stuttering with AA enabled when playing UFO: Aftermath.... performance was awesome with the 3.7 , I could play with 16 Anistropic and 6x AA... now i get stuttering with 2x AA on? Really weird...

mkk

I had hoped for a lot more on the so called "game profile" feature, but I'll just have to kick in RadLinker again until ATI really does something worthwile there. Other than that I'm more than okay with the driver. VPU recover should be a nice thing to have in the long run. It's the feature in 3.8 to me. A little too much hooplah was created about the rest in my mind.

Rayder

Perhaps it is, boy, but unless I misread the Release Notes, the 3.8's are for 8500's too ya know. An 8500 is what I have and an 8500 is what I must deal with until 'real-life' allows me to afford a new top-of-the-line-super-duper-really-good-this-time-turbo-hyper-mega-lightning-speed Radeon. OK?



Anyway, back to what I originally came here to post. Here are some pics of the problems I mentioned with the 3.8's on an 8500.

The Hulk (this has been going on since the 3.6's)


Supercar Street Challenge (this is a new problem with the 3.8's)



There are some others, but I'm out of webspace. Re-installng the 3.5 'hotfix' drivers eliminates these problems, which is what I've been forced to do.

Warpy

Hey dude,

I think your askn for too much....... Way to much!!

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kuja

I can safely say that this will be the worst release in the entire 3.x series.

a)The per-game profiles are useless in that they are not automatically applied when a game is launched, as they are in 3rd party applications which have been around for long before now, rendering the official support redundant. They save you maybe 2/3 mouse clicks. Big deal.

b)VPU protection is similarly useless. Unless the drivers are not working (in which case, priority should be given to that rather than such superfluous features), the fault lies with the hardware. If the fault lies with the hardware, you're overclocking WAY too far, or the card is fubar. If the card is fubar, VPU protection doesn't mean a damn. Again, unnecessary.

c)The new smartshader features are a fucking idiotic inclusion, at best. With the number of outstanding bugs in the Catalysts, I cannot believe that they expended a month of time working on such a frivolous, novelty of a feature, that noone in their right minds will use after a week or two.

d)The release fubared many, many popular games, including BF1942, Morrowind, DAOC, IL2FB, LOMAC, Homeworld 2, UT2003 (when using their stupid PS effects), NASCAR 2003 etc etc.

e)The changes to the control panel are also trivial ahd dispensable. The condensing of D3D and OGL panels into one is just a hassle, and requires more of the clicking that ATi tried to hard to remove with their ineffectual application profiles.

f)The overdrive feature is wholly useless for 99% of those using ATi cards. As it only works on XT boards, it provides absolutely no utility for the vast majority of their customers, and represents a waste of time, when there are far more important problems with their shitty drivers. Edit: Not to mention the fact that the increases in core are limited to 20mhz. I am currently running my 9800Pro at close to 100mhz over the default speed, and that's the best they can deliver. 20mhz should/will make jack-shit real-world difference.


My thoughts? Terry/the Catalyst coders should be fired and it's a damn shame nVidia's hardware isn't up to scratch, because ATi's supporting drivers are sure as hell not.

ErrorS

i voted 9 (shoulda voted 8). I think they're great drivers and would've been perfect if it werent for a few SMALL bugs (just annoyances) and the fact that the profile thing completely sucks ass.

i love them..

Raider1

No real big change here i gave them a 7

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The Autumn Wind is a pirate. Blustering in from sea With a rollicking song he sweeps along swaggering boisterously. His face is weather beaten. He wears a hooded sash. With his silver hat about his head And a bristly black moustache. He growls as he storms the country. A villain big and bold. And the trees all shake and quiver and quake. As he robs them of their gold. The Autumn wind is a Raider. Pillaging just for fun. He'll knock you 'round and upside down. And laugh when he's conquered and won.

My Rig

Anemotion

I give these a 7 few things i have noticed since my upgrade from omega 3.5s

+
1. In some games everything feels slightly smoother! (halo etc)
2. Great image quality as usual!
3. Desktop feels more responsive.
4. Nice pixel shader effect's! a fun novelty


-
1. The different control panel is nice thou i'd prefer they kept it as it was so i have to click less to change stuff
2. The game profiles thing need's to be expanded upon so we don't have to goto the control panel to change them.
3. Althou the pixel shader effects are a fun novelty there appeal wears off after a while

Warpy

Couldnt help but laugh and share symphany with ya bud!
For me drivers have worked well, I am also using a 9800 PRO - I tend to agree with ya about the O/C feature and VPU Protection



I have a FX5900 for sale if you want it?!!

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Trilogy

I'll give them 8.
They look pretty stable, no hardlocks like 3.7 yet. Games run as fast as with 3.5 and Smart shaders look pretty cool. Why are people nagging about smart shaders. They look cool and give drivers a shiny look. I had fun while testing them with games. I have to admit that i expected more resolves to bugs but these drivers include more new features than the last five releases altogether. 3D tab could look more futuristic with Windows XP buttons and sliders, maybe in future... I'd like to thank ATi for another great driver release, keep doing these and keeping customers happy.

Lezboy

I gave them a 1. Installed the whole suit on my all in wonder. Now I have to format. To ammount of troubleshooting will fix this mess. BOOOOO!

jscodner

The Drivers are very stable. However, the new uninstall is merely a chained windows uninstaller. It gives one no option to save previous settings, lihe simple add/remove does. It did not remove all ATI software properly at all. Did not realize hydravision and MMC would be toasted. After installing 8.7, it won't start , add/remove uninstall locks, repair doesn't work. Have to re-use CD for DVD if one doesn't catch that one in uninstall process. A driver uninstaller is useful, but messing up the rest has wasted hours. First time ever such a prob since pre 128 days.

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Through the Harmony and Peace of Love and Unity, John

HawK

quotes from Kuja
mostly agree with you, but i'm betting it will improve in time,
meanwhile the Cat. makers could take a look at the Kyro card which had the best & easiest way of making gameprofiles i have seen to date.
maybe at the moment yes, but it will be a feature needed for MS longhorn, and you never can start with implementing this early enough.
Yeah just a play thingie atm, but who knows what will grow out of it.
Cannot comment I do not play these games, do you ?
Question of taste I think, when ranting on something, you can find much more i guess
Yes it is, that is why people buy new cards for : new features, Vcards evolve, you can't make A Lotus Elite out of a VWbuggy.
A waste of time to reply to you, I know, but like you I have norring better to do with my life.

My vote ? a 9 for the drivers, 5 for the new features....

coastie

I gave them a 4 because the One and only game which I built this computer around is fubar!

IL2 Forgotten Battles got totally hosed on this set. Flashing textures, must turn off multitextures in game to rid this problem. Choppy game play even with 70-80fps. When activating perfect mode in game it will show only the plane and a solid blue background.

I am also not so thrilled with the CP layout. I wish at least the 3d tab would default to the last one you used. It always opens with DX checked and I only play OGL. What a pain!

Anyway, I have been a proud owner of a 7200, 8500 and now a 9800 and I have always had excellent performance and never any problems like this. Everyone makes mistakes. I will just use the 3.7 ogl file with the 3.8's and all is well for now.

Patiently waiting for 3.9's!

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BWX

I like these drivers. I would have rather had a saturation control (like NV. DV) in 3D apps than the silly smart shaders- But they are still cool- and hell why not, I'm sure it didn't take too long to add these "filters"- So I'm not complaining about them.

I like the profiles too, I have about 4 set up for both D3d and OGL, and they work great- it does save time, without question. I still wish that you didn't have to did so deep into the settings every time, but it's not that bad.

I got the highest score ever in 3dmark03 the first run w/ an OC on my card- Games run smooth- so far.

Because no saturation control when I know ATI could do it- and slight annoyances, they get an 8.

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